(Editor’s note: Brady Bauman is a long-time friend of NewsCow and a Winfield native attending Kansas State. He is pursuing a career in sports journalism.
Bauman submitted this column on Vic McClung, a Winfield school board member and well-known farmer, who died last week after a battle with ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.)
I’ve known Vic McClung, his wife Jan, and the rest of the McClung family for the greater portion of my life.
I attended the former South Vernon Elementary School with his four daughters. The youngest, twins Ashley and Allison, were a grade ahead of me.
In grade school, my little sister, Lacey, and I became involved in the Walnut Valley 4-H club at the urging of our parents. I think Vic’s oldest daughter, Shannon, was president of the club at the time. I’m confident Erin, the next oldest, was the photographer.
Even as a kid, I could quickly see the closeness of the McClung family and their passion for serving others. It truly is in their blood.
Vic was a tremendous leader and his family often opened up their home to the club for meetings and – despite their busy schedules – always had time to help a member with his or her project.
My earliest memory of Vic had to be first or second grade. There was a field trip where our class saw a real-life farming operation.
It was the McClung Bros. farm, a place I ended up working years later, all through high school. Vic was my boss.
It’s on that farm where I really got to know the quality of Vic’s character.
Along with his younger brother, Jim, Vic taught me life lessons that I will never forget. Many I won’t realize I’ve learned until later in life, I’m sure.
Lesson one came immediately.
On my inaugural day as a worker at the farm – my sophomore year in 2001 – I was introduced to my then new co-worker, Kyle Inmon, who was a grade below me.
After the introduction, both Kyle and I gave each other a sluggish nod and a “hey”.
Vic wasn’t amused.
“Come on,” he quickly interjected, “shake hands like men.”
We did and Vic – dressed in his usual denim overalls, work boots and plaid button-up shirt rolled to the elbows – had a look of disbelief, mixed with a little levity, on his face.
I’m sure he thought, “I have a few things to teach these boys.”
Ever since then, I never miss a handshake.
It’s a simple lesson, and maybe indicative of Kyle and I’s lack of polish at the time, more than anything. But, it represented a quality in Vic many admired – showing respect for others.
Vic was a courteous, thoughtful person and earned respect back without demanding it. Vic showed so much consideration for others, it was just natural for people to match or exceed that level of consideration when interacting with him.
Vic – and Jim, too – worked right along side Kyle and me.
And Vic didn’t dish out any work he wouldn’t do himself. Whether it was cleaning out a grain bin in the middle of a 100-degree sunny June day or sorting hogs in cold, miserable weather, he was right there beside you.
I used to always think it was a given in life – that everyone has a positive attribute to offer society. But, the older I have gotten, I’ve found it is harder and harder to see it in some people.
For Vic, it didn’t seem that difficult.
Like a lot of kids in high school, being on time wasn’t – and some may argue still isn’t – my forte.
Other bosses, I’m sure, would have kicked me out the door with the expedience I lacked getting to the farm some mornings. But, Vic would give me a stern look that quickly melted away in a smile – that is, if I told the right joke or had the foresight to bring breakfast.
He saw something in me. Vic saw an eagerness to do a good job and work that much harder. He saw an honest kid who knew he had a problem with hitting the snooze bar a few too many times, but shared his boss’s respect for others and hard work.
Vic made sure every wheat harvest I had lunch with him in the combine on occasion. He knew seeing wheat cycle through the rotors of the header from the cab of a combine was a rite of passage for any true Kansan.
And there were the lunches…
They often consisted of peanut butter and homemade sand-plum jelly sandwiches, chips, and chillingly cold Mason jars full of iced tea that served as defense against the mid-summer sun.
Jan, and Vic’s late mother, Gracie, delivered the lunches on location throughout the farm during harvest and that eating experience, set against the surroundings, was about as Americana as it gets.
Vic helped me learn how to drive the farm’s varied fleet of grain trucks. Although I bet at the beginning of that learning curve he wouldn’t have been pleased to hear I was telling people he taught me.
I got the hang of it, though.
As I graduated from high school, it was Vic, a school board member for 10 years, who handed me my diploma.
It’s been far too long since I’ve visited the farm. It makes me sad to think I won’t be able to ride around with Vic, or work alongside him there again.
I wish I could go back and record every one of the many work and non-work related conversations I had with him. While he wasn’t a reserved speaker, exactly, he still didn’t say much that didn’t need saying.
For as much as I’ve learned and recall from working with Vic, I’m sure there are other things I’m forgetting.
But I always remember the pride he took in his family and his work, the numerous life lessons I learned, his friendship, and I’ll always look back with admiration in the respect he had for me and others.
His life was cut far too short, but not many have lived it so fully.